Paris day 3

Today we got off to a bit of a late start although it seems everyone else here does the same so we didn't feel too bad.  We walked to the Gare L'Est station and caught the hop-on/hop-off tour bus to see all the sights and get our orientation of the city.  It was a beautiful sunny day and it was just delightful to be sitting on the top of the bus admiring Paris while someone else did the driving.

 Our first stop was the church of St Madeleine where we wandered around the exclusive shops, had a quiet peek in the church and some lunch on the stairs at the front.  Then we walked to the Place de la Concorde where we ogled at the fountains and obelisk with the other tourists.  Having seen it in  pictures we were both still surprised by how big the area was.



 We jumped back on the bus then and saw the Louvre, Notredam Cathedral, and the Sacre Couer (check the spelling) before we ended up back on the Champs Elysees where there was still a queue for the Louis Vuitton store :-)    After a circuit around the Arc de Triomphe the bus took us to the Eifel Tower.  It was really magic to be there on such a lovely sunny day and we took lots of pictures.

Paris

The Gare l'Est train station

St Laurence from the back entrance

St Laurence from the front

We wanted to buy this charming wee boy at the park.  Tres Bien Mamam

Yesterday we caught the Thalys fast train from Rotterdam.  I thought I would catch up on the blog but it went so darn fast we were in Paris before we knew it.  The first thing we did when we arrived was take our heavy suitcases for a walk around the block a few times before we found our hotel.  Once we found it and off-loaded our baggage we went for another walk - it was a lot more pleasant without our suitcases!


On first meeting Paris is dirty, smelly and a bit ugly.  There is a lot of dog doodoos and rubbish on the streets and we were saddened to see a number of homeless people sleeping and begging around the place.  Now I have said it and  I won't mention it again.

la Metro outside our hotel

Breakfast - strawberries with cream and macarons

Antiques at the flea market

seashells for sale

at the market

at the market

MacDonalds in Paris - we were hungry and tired and it was next to the station!

it's a bit more stylish than the Mac-ers at home

Today was Sunday and most everything is closed so we went to the flea market at Le Puces.  There is 17 hectares of markets there and I know we only saw a fraction of it but we picked up some bargains and got totally lost in the process.  I will upload some photos tomorrow.  We saw plenty of beautiful antiques, amazing furniture, Gucci knock-off handbags, jeans, overpriced junk, overpriced treasure, fruit,veges, fish, cheese, meat, 2dollar store type stuff etc etc etc.  After lunch at MacDonalds (how embarassing) we finally found our way back to the station except that when we got to the platform it was a different station to where we thought :-)

No worries, we caught the train to Champs Elysees which just happened to be on the same line.  We had a lovely walk along the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe through the hordes of tourists.  We found it amusing/amazing that there were queues to get into everything, from over-priced cafes to Louis Vuitton (check this spelling :-) .

The Champs Elysees

 People queue to buy a handbag at Louis Vuitton on the Champs Elysees

this typifies the building style in Paris

The Arc de Triomphe. the tiny specks are people on the top

 To be continued....

Delft

Leonie and Lydia took us to the Delft pottery factory where we saw beautiful blue and white pottery and some amazing tile murals including a full size replica of the Nightwatch by Rembrandt.  We enjoyed our buy one get one free coffees and the free toilets which were artfully decorated with blue and white also.

you know you are in Delft when even the cars are blue and white

Leonie and Lydia

one of the tile murals in the Delft factory

my new shoes

Leonie, Ali and some old cow

the back end of the cow

the toilet

Afterwards we drove into the city of Delft and walked around the canals, the town square and the many souvenir shops.  We enjoyed a hearty lunch of pancakes and continued on with our wander around the shops.


After several tacky souvenir purchases we picked up some kroquettes and went to see Mum's Tante Diene (check this spelling).  Mum and Lydia went to see the graves of her Oma and Opa Middeldorp  and Ali Middeldorp as they were just around the corner from Deine's appartment.  Mom said it was very special to be there just on twilight and someone had lit candles around the cemetery that made it quite serene.  Tante Diene was delightful, and she welcomed us into her home even though she had no idea who we were.  We enjoyed looking through some old family photos and postcards and talking to Tante Diene as we scoffed our kroquettes.  Then it was time to go out for dinner.

in the florist shop

the town hall in Delft

We saw these two fellows going under the bridge with their dog

we loved all the bikes in Holland

Leonie and Lydia in front of Leonie's chocolate shop

The restaurant Lydia and Leonie chose was erg gezellig (check this spelling, I may need you to edit this for me Leonie), and we really enjoyed our meal together.  The atmosphere in the square in Delft was lovely, people everywhere sitting at tables and eating and drinking in such a civilised way, it was "so nice".  After dinner we just had to stop for apple tart and mint tea on our way home.  We crawled into bed around 1 am after an absolutely magic day.

Oousterhout and Breda

Outside the church at Oosterhout

We stayed for two days with Ria and Freid in their lovely apartment in Oosterhout.  They took us for a wander around their local shopping area and introduced us to the joys of shopping at Jumbo (pronounced Yumbo in English) which is a giant supermarket.  They thought it was a bit funny that we bought a Jumbo bag for our shopping - hahaha tacky!  We thought it was even better than that other Dutch institution - Blokker

In the central shopping area of Breda

Breda - church bell tower

Inside the church

look up! the ceiling has beautiful painting

Here is the burial place of someone important, its inside the church

I wish I could read Dutch better so I could tell you what this bit is.

This painting was near the door inside the church

The church at Breda was very beautiful and we oggled and goggled like Australian tourists all around the place.

this portrait of Oma Middeldorp (Theo's Mother) hangs in Ria's house

Freid, Ria and Ali

On Thursday it was Ria's birthday so from 1pm their family all came for her birthday party to wish her haartelijk gefeelciterd (check this spelling) and drink tea, eat vlaai (tarts) and broodjes (bread rolls with ham or cheese.  They finished up with fries and kroquettes and then John and Carli kindly gave us a lift to Leonie's house in  Den Hoorn.

I hope you are having a good laugh at all my spelling Leonie!